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Today is
Wednesday, March 13, the 72nd day of 2013. There are 293 days left in the
year.

Highlights in history

• On
March 13, 1933, banks in the U.S. began to reopen after a “holiday” declared by
President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

• In
1639, New College was renamed Harvard College for clergyman John Harvard.

• In
1781, the seventh planet of the solar system, Uranus, was discovered by Sir
William Herschel.

• In
1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed a measure prohibiting Union military
officers from returning fugitive slaves to their owners.

• In
1925, the Tennessee General Assembly approved a bill prohibiting the teaching of
the theory of evolution. (Gov. Austin Peay signed the measure on March 21.)

• In
1938, famed attorney Clarence S. Darrow (above) died in Chicago.

• In
1969, the Apollo 9 astronauts splashed down, ending a mission that included the
successful testing of the Lunar Module.

• In
1980, Ford Motor Chairman Henry Ford II announced that he was stepping down, the
same day a jury in Winamac, Ind., found the company not guilty of reckless homicide in the fiery
deaths of three young women in a Ford Pinto.

• In
1996, a gunman burst into an elementary school in Dunblane, Scotland, and opened
fire, killing 16 children and one teacher before killing himself.

•
Ten years ago: The Senate voted 64-33 to ban a procedure that critics called
partial-birth abortion. (The measure passed the House and was signed into law by President George
W. Bush in November 2003.)

•
Five years ago: Gold hit a record, rising to $1,000 an ounce for the first time
(however, it fell sharply later in the year).

•
One year ago: Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc. said it would stop publishing print
editions.

Thought for today

“Work is something you can count on, a trusted, lifelong friend who never deserts you.” —
Margaret Bourke-White, American photojournalist (1904-1971)